Anna and Simeon. I don’t know what the big deal was at the time. No one really liked to hang out with either one of them.  I would know, I was there![1]

Simeon just sort of sat around. Didn’t really talk to many folks. The only thing he would talk to people about at length was how God told him that he wouldn’t die until he saw the messiah.

We had no idea how old he was. I did see him once in the grocery store aisle, his head hung low. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, “I have lived too long.”

Carol Brennamen said those words to Cheri Ingraham once in Buehlers. Kate’s Great Aunt Rosie said something similar in her lifetime.  Simeon was ready to die. He wondered why God was keeping him around. Yet that promise of the messiah lingered. It pushed him on the days that were harder than normal.

We found it weird that Simeon welcomed death. We found it weird he had this message from God about the messiah that many of us put in the same category as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Yet when he would talk about it, you could get a glimpse of the younger man he had been. The Young Simeon whose life was ahead of him. He must have been a sight to see.

And Anna. There was another strange one. Her husband died and she’d been in the temple every day since. Some called her a prophet. Some said, “Only men can be prophets!” Others pointed out how our sacred stories had Huldah[2], Deborah[3], and Miriam[4] and others in the bible. She was 84. She would talk about how women need to be in every place where decisions were made. She argued for women priests in the temple. She spoke about equal pay for women and something about a glass ceiling and gender equality.

Her blend of personal piety and social justice was weird. The religious folk who only wanted quiet piety kept saying she was preaching politics. And the social justice crowd thought the praying part was a waste of time. Yet Anna said that you had to have both. Both were the key to seeing God in our every day and to helping the beloved community come closer.

It was disorienting to listen to them. And the day that poor couple Mary and Joseph came in… Well, we knew they were poor because they could only afford two doves. Other couples made a big show of how big of an animal they could sacrifice for their purity right for their first born son. But this couple looked embarrassed to be noticed.

Simeon broke into song when he saw them! “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss^[c^] your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.”

Simeon died two days later. We read those words at his funeral. And at other funerals.

I look forward to reading those words about our church members and loved ones Carol Brennaman and Henry Gerhardt. In their lives, at the end, we can survey the whole story. We can say, “Here was a beloved child of God. Here is were there was salvation. Here is the light of revelation. Here’s Christ revealed in and through this life.”

I relish those words.

And Anna. Well… we haven’t seen her. She got right to work after that. Some say they saw her as far away as Jericho, talking about how the redemption of Jerusalem is at hand. How the low will be lifted, and the rich will be brought down. How repentance and forgiveness are near.

It was all very disorienting at the time. Now it makes sense what the saw in the carpenter’s son.  Simeon and Anna saw something. They picked up on it. They were living in the After before it happened. That’s confusing to the rest of us.

If we’re honest, life is confusing and confounding. That’s the feel of the worship today. It’s very intentional. We’re going backwards, because Advent is backwards. We’re living in the After. Jesus had already come, yet in Advent we pretend that we’re living in the Before.

Sometimes life works like that though. Some folks know about the after before it happens. The prophets see the signs that point the way. They connect the dots before the rest of us do. They call us to change our ways to what God is doing or is going to do. Like Simeon and Anna. We can listen to those prophets. Heed their call. Adapt, change, and evolve.

For God is doing a new thing. The church is always being resurrected. The body of Christ is alive and well. Sometimes you’ll find it at Cool Beans in the Post-it notes of those offering free coffee to strangers. Sometimes you’ll find it in the drive-thru when the car in front of you paid for your meal. Sometimes it’ll be a guy in Akron telling you what it’s like to be without shelter and how the city actively ignores the needs of those citizens. Sometimes, it’ll even be in a church building. Someone in a committee meeting decides that the agenda is not the sole focus of why the group has gathered and they instead tell a story of where they are. They might laugh. They might cry. They open up and pour their heart out… and they find that they aren’t alone.

My own eyes have seen it. The salvation that will reach both Gentile and Jew. Both believer and nonbeliever. We know the kingdom when it breaks in and starts to do its work. Some folks might label us weird.

I’m not too concerned with being called weird, I’ve been called worse. Nor do I care if they label me a Jesus freak. There ain’t no denying the truth. I give thanks to the first two Jesus freaks: Simeon and Anna. The Holy Spirit spoke to them… and is still speaking to us all.

Works Cited

[1] In my theological imagination that is… bear with me here…

^[2][2] 2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chron. 34:22

^[3][3] Judg. 4:4

^[4][4] Exod. 15:20